There are thousands of free guides and practice tests about TOEFL on the internet. However, many free TOEFL resources on the internet are not helpful because they do not resemble the real TOEFL questions at all. To help you to choose the best ones, we have compiled this recommended list of excellent free TOEFL resources.

The most helpful resources are the questions from the previous tests. ETS provides a wonderful program and many practice tests that are made from previously administered test questions.

Best Free TOEFL Resources

Here’s a list of the best free TOEFL materials available on the internet. The rest of the article is broken down into TOEFL test materials, best reading materials, best writing materials, best listening materials, and best speaking materials. We hope that you will find these best TOEFL resources to be helpful as you prepare for your test.

Helpful and Free TOEFL Resources

1. TOEFL Go!® App

TOEFL Go!® App is a tool from ETS that you can download on your desktop, laptop, or mobile. With internet access, you can open and practice several mock tests anytime. You will be scored by an automated AI-powered scoring so you can check the results in real-time. Downloading this app will be very beneficial to test takers as they can conveniently practice anytime and anywhere.

2. Magoosh

Magoosh is another valuable TOEFL site. It contains excellent free TOEFL resources such as blog posts, practice materials for each section, a 200-word vocabulary list, and a mini-test. This site should be bookmarked for prospective students.

Magoosh TOEFL Blog 

The Magoosh TOEFL blog has hundreds of helpful blog posts regarding TOEFL. If you are unfamiliar with TOEFL, spending an hour or two reading their blog posts will help you to better understand TOEFL structure and test-taking strategies.

Also, The blog has articles that contain practice questions from each section of the tests. Its practice questions are well-written and even contain audio files for the listening sections! You should definitely make use of this wonderful site.

Mini TOEFL Test 

Magoosh offers a Mini TOEFL Test which closely resembles the real test. To take this, please visit Magoosh Practice Test.

Vocabulary 

Magoosh compiled 200 vocabulary words that are frequently used in TOEFL. To download a printable PDF version of this vocabulary, please click on this link. It also features interactive online flashcards for you to practice, and you can access it here.

3. EduSynch

Edusynch.com is a TOEFL prep website that offers awesome free TOEFL resources. This site contains more than 1,200 reading and listening questions, and the program itself is interactive. Also, you don’t have to answer all 1,200 questions at once, but you can answer them in different chunks called sessions.

The great thing about this site is not only it contains a huge number of high-quality questions, but it also analyzes your results. After each session, your results are analyzed, and the program shows your strengths and weaknesses. After you take a reading section, the program analyzes your results and shows your strengths and weaknesses in ten different areas such as vocab, reference, and purpose. Also, listening shows your strengths and weaknesses in different areas such as content, details, and attitude.

The program also shows your average response time per question and your projected scores for each section. This is an excellent program to practice your English skills because of its number of questions and the detailed breakdown of your results.

4. English Club

English Club is a site that provides free resources for both English learners and teachers. This site has particularly helpful information regarding the TOEFL test. This blog article contains 20 helpful tips regarding how to prepare for the TOEFL. Also, it has practice quizzes for all four sections of the TOEFL test: Reading, Listening, Speaking, and Writing. These contain the questions and the sample responses for every question which is very helpful.

Check Also: Available Programs for International Students

Free TOEFL Resources for Reading

Many students ask, “How can we prepare for the TOEFL reading section most effectively?” There are two ways of increasing your score in the reading section: Answer as many TOEFL reading questions and read as many academic texts as you can.  The first thing you can do is buy books. For reading many academic texts, we recommend free TOEFL resources that have the same difficulty as the real TOEFL exam.

1. Kindle App

Kindle App is a free reading app that is available on both mobile devices and computers. Kindle App allows users to access the Amazon Kindle Store which contains millions and millions of books. Although you need to pay for most of the books, thousands of books are free (especially the classics). These classics are excellent sources for you to learn advanced vocabulary and increase your reading comprehension.

You might think that these free books are of inferior quality because they are free. However, this is not the case. These books are free because their copyright has expired, not because they are of bad quality. Excellent books such as Great Expectations, Christmas Carol, Tale of Two Cities, and Count of Monte Cristo are all free at your disposal by downloading the Kindle App.

2. Prepscholar 327 Vocab Words

Prepscholar made an excellent list of vocabulary words that you’ll need to know for the TOEFL test. To create this list, they went through the official TOEFL tests and picked words that students might struggle with. Then, they reviewed other prominent TOEFL vocabulary lists and picked words that would appear the most on the TOEFL. 

We highly recommend studying this list thoroughly since the knowledge of vocabulary is crucial to your reading score. We recommend also studying words not on this list only, try other vocabulary lists such as Barron’s and Magoosh’s.

3. New York Times

New York Times is one of the leading newspapers in the United States. The articles that are featured on its website are written by the best writers in the nation. Their excellent writing style and their use of advanced vocabulary will prepare students well for the TOEFL reading. Also, the best thing is that the level of difficulty of these articles is almost the same difficulty as the texts from TOEFL reading!

If you are struggling with the scientific text in TOEFL, you should take a look at the science section in the New York Times. It has a separate science section that contains many scientific articles on different subjects. By reading these articles, you will become more familiar with the scientific texts in TOEFL.

4. Popular Science

Popular Science is another resource for students who struggle with scientific texts. This scientific magazine deals with a variety of subjects such as technology, entertainment, and science. Although other articles are great to read, only the scientific articles will show up on the actual test. If you want to read just the scientific articles, I recommend going to the animal section and reading articles from that section.

5. Breaking News English

All the resources mentioned above have almost the same difficulty as the actual TOEFL. For beginners, reading TOEFL-level material can be quite difficult. If you are having difficulty reading TOEFL-level materials, you should definitely take a look at Breaking News English which is specifically designed for ESL students. The great thing about this website is that it is broken into six levels from beginner to advanced. Students can pick a comfortable level at first and then gradually read materials from harder levels.

After every reading, there are sections that ask about reading comprehension problems, synonyms, vocabulary, etc about the reading. These help students to increase their reading comprehension skills. Also, the same text is written with different levels of difficulty using different vocabulary words and sentence structure to adjust the level of difficulty. This enables students to read the same text with harder or easier words. Using this tool, students can quickly change the level of difficulty to read materials that are in their comfort zone.

6. Quizlet

Quizlet is an online flashcard tool that helps students to learn vocabulary using different methods such as games and quizzes. When it is used correctly, it can become very beneficial to students preparing for the TOEFL. You can either create your own study set in Quizlet or use one of the millions of study sets that were created by others.

Quizlet has hundreds of free study sets that you can use to study TOEFL vocabulary. For motivated students, we highly recommend Barron’s 450 Essential Words for TOEFL. After you are done memorizing that set, there are hundreds of other sets that you can look into!

Free TOEFL Resources in Listening

TOEFL Listening section can be difficult for students who are not accustomed to the American accent. The best way to improve your score is to expose yourself to American accents by constantly listening to them. Here are some free resources to improve your TOEFL listening score.

1. Movies

Do you want to learn English while you are being entertained? Movies are a great way to both entertain yourself and learn English. If you are relatively a beginner, watch your favorite movies and TV shows first with subtitles in your language. Once you are familiar with the plot, try watching it with English subtitles. To increase the level of difficulty, watch movies without any subtitles! Movies are a great way to learn everyday conversations while enjoying it at the same time!

2. Elllo

Elllo is a great site for ESL students (English as a Second Language) because it contains over 2,500 free lessons and recordings made specifically for ESL students. Elllo features many accents around the world, but you only have to be familiar with the American accents for the TOEFL. On its website, there are flags beside every recording that represent the dialect of the recordings. To listen to American accents, look for recordings with an American flag beside it, and you can also search for just American accents in their search box.

Elllo presents not only a great variety of everyday conversations but also one-minute English talks and recordings called mixers in which six people answer the same question and give their answers to that same questions. These mixers are also helpful in the speaking section where students have to answer questions about a familiar topic. Students can answer a question in the mixers and listen to answers from different people. So students can improve both their speaking and listening skills at the same time using elllo.org.

3. Ted Talks

Ted Talks is a really great program that has over 4,300 free talks on a variety of subjects. Since it covers a variety of topics, you can choose the topic that you are interested in or explore new topics for fun! These talks are delivered by professionals in their respective fields and are usually shorter than 18 minutes. Since these talks are short and excellent, you should listen to them whenever you have free time.

4. Learning English

LearningEnglish is an excellent free TOEFL resource for a beginner. This site speaks news articles very slowly which helps many beginners to comprehend what is being said. Also, different news articles are divided into three levels of difficulty to help navigation. There are many news articles on this site, and it is an excellent resource for listening, especially for beginners.

Free TOEFL Resources for Speaking

Speaking is the hardest section for most students preparing for the TOEFL because of the lack of practice materials available on the internet. The only way to increase your speaking score is to practice and practice. Here’s a great resource to practice your speaking skills.

1. Elllo

I have mentioned Elllo previously for the Listening Section. I will mention this site again because this site is also great for speaking. Not only does it contain a great variety of everyday conversations, and one-minute English talks, but the site also offers mixers which are recordings of six different people answering the same question. Mixers are very helpful because you can answer the question first and listen to others respond.

Free TOEFL Resources for Writing

There are two types of writing in TOEFL: integrated and independent tasks. The integrated task is writing after you have listened to a recording and read a reading prompt. Independent task is writing about any given topic. To prepare for these tasks, we recommend using the following resources:

1. Good Luck TOEFL

Good Luck TOEFL has hundreds of sample writing prompts that are categorized into five question types. This is helpful for independent tasks where you have to answer a specific question. Although there are many writing prompts, there is a lack of sample answers. Also, this site contains tips on every section of the TOEFL, so you can read it if you are interested.

2. New York Times

I have previously mentioned the New York Times in the Reading Section, but this is an extremely beneficial resource in the Writing Section as well. You can browse the website to improve your writing. The writers at New York Times are known for their excellent writing skills. For example, in any article published on the website, you can easily locate their topic sentences, supporting sentences, and conclusion sentences. Also, take a look at how they use descriptive adjectives and nouns to paint a picture with their words. You should be able to summarize their articles after you have read them. This will improve your reading comprehension and summarizing skills which are crucial in TOEFL writing.

3. Beat the Test

Beat the Test has a list of 155 TOEFL Independent Writing questions that were used in the real TOEFL test by the ETS. This is a fantastic resource for students who want extra practice in writing with authentic TOEFL questions. You should note that this site does not give you sample responses for these questions, but it is an excellent resource nonetheless.

4. TOEFL Resources 

TOEFL Resources is an excellent guide to the writing section. First, it has 40 sample TOEFL essay questions with answers. This really helps students to prepare for the TOEFL writing section by writing their own answers and comparing them to the sample answers. Second, it provides students with TOEFL writing templates which helps the students to form structured essays and to save time. 

Recommended Books

Although these free TOEFL resources are great, they have their limitations. First, you will notice that there is no free, complete, and authentic TOEFL test. Solving these mini-tests will help you to be familiar with the format, but it is not sufficient to simulate actual testing conditions. Second, there are not many writing and speaking questions and sample answers in these free resources.

It is possible to entirely prepare for the test with these free TOEFL resources. However, your scores could be better with supplemental books. Although books cost money, buying them will be more economical in the long run because you will achieve your target score by taking fewer tests or by taking just one! Think of hundreds of dollars you can save by taking fewer tests! You should check out 5 Books to Dramatically Increase Your Score!

 

We hope this article on TOEFL Resources was helpful to you. To know more information on studying abroad, check out the Available Programs for International Students.

About the Author: Hyun Lee

Hyun is the founder at Global Scholarships. He has received a full-tuition scholarship at Birmingham-Southern College as well as $1,000 Burger King Scholarship for his undergraduate degree and has been offered a fully funded scholarship consisting of tuition, living stipend, and health insurance for computer science Ph.D. program at North Carolina State University. Read more about his scholarship journey here.

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